Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Magali do Nascimento Cunha 156 ed in the media as “the” voice capable of expressing opinions and evaluations about the evangelical-po- litical relationship. He became a spokesperson for the conservative discourse of defense of the “tradi- tional family,” of reaction against social advances, especially regarding women’s and sexual rights. It is possible to affirm that Malafaia’s conservative discourse reaches wide space in the mainstream media, as it responds to expectations with religion (imaginary and ideology) on the part of the news producers. The accreditation of Silas Malafaia as a great evangelical leader, acting as a spokesperson for the group, was also consolidated in far-reaching religious media. 9. The religious media started to give visibility, feed the thematic emphases and dynamics around agendas of sexual morality, conveyed in the mainstream me- dia, especially around the “war” between evangeli- cal politicians and activists of feminist and LGBTI movements. With this, these media provided the recreation of the “imaginary of the enemy” among evangelicals with approaches such as “saving the family” of LGBTI activists, feminists, and of the left- wing, whose major project was to implant commu - nism in the country. These themes started to appear in campaign content for candidates for public office and are present in church leaders’ discourses. In this context, the religious media contributed to the rec- reation of the imaginary of the persecution of evan- gelicals in Brazil, present since the implantation of Protestantism in the 19th century, and the encour - agement of a “spiritual war” as an answer. These elements compose the framework that today puts evangelicals as the leading religious group in the political process underway in Brazil, which results in the intense visibil- ity of the evangelical group in the National Congress, and also in the emergence of non-institutional political activist religious leaders, with a strong presence on digital social networks.